Skip to main content
Main

Curried Eggs

A savory dish of hard boiled eggs simmered in a coconut and curry sauce with tomatoes and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Curried Eggs

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Slice the onion and cook it in the butter in a pan until pale straw color.

  2. Add the skinned and sliced tomatoes, stock, coconut, and spices.

  3. Simmer gently for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Cut the hard boiled eggs in half and add them to the pan.

  2. Heat thoroughly and serve with boiled rice.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Coconut + cinnamontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together979 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  4. Coconut + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Tomato + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,348 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Hard boiled eggs are the main protein, added in halves to warm through in the sauce.
Onion
Cooked slowly in butter until pale, it builds a sweet, mellow base for the sauce.
Tomatoes
Break down during simmering to add acidity and body to the sauce.
Curry paste
Supplies the main spice aroma and flavor that defines the dish.
Butter
Carries the spices and onion, adding fat and richness to the sauce.
Stock
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding moisture and savory depth.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for 30 minutes. A gentle simmer lets the tomatoes break down and the spices bloom into a cohesive sauce without scorching. Boiling hard can reduce the liquid too quickly and make the sauce harsh or uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (coconut, egg, tomato, clove, cinnamon, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Eggplantfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against coconut, egg, tomato, clove, cinnamon, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes